A team of researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, published a paper earlier this year in the medical journal The Lancet estimating that approximately 75,200 people died in Gaza between the October 7, 2023 massacre and January 5, 2025. The researchers said their estimate was based on surveys and field studies conducted in Gaza.
A group of demographers has now published a response in the same journal, arguing that the death toll estimate was significantly inflated due to a series of methodological flaws. According to the authors, some survey teams returned implausibly high figures from areas with unusual household compositions, while the study also relied on overlapping survey zones and non-representative samples.
The response further argues that, in some cases, researchers relied on interviews with neighbors on a single street rather than using a cross-sectional sample of the broader area, raising the possibility that some deaths were recorded more than once. The demographers contend that these shortcomings could have resulted in a substantial overestimate of the death toll.
Prof. Sergio Della Pergola, a demography and statistics expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told The Telegraph: "Every innocent victim is a tragedy we all agree on, but that is not the point. This has become a highly charged issue, and public debate can be fueled by half-truths or false facts, and that is a very serious problem."
He added: "Many of the reported deaths come from just two survey teams, and that is rather suspicious. In fact, it appears those two teams sampled specific locations where there was a particular concentration of people recorded as casualties during the war. It is important for demographers to maintain professional standards in the midst of an emotional and political debate."